EPA removes climate change references from website, report says

CNN

6:43 AM, Dec 8, 2017

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WASHINGTON, DC - December 7: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the mission of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

Pete Marovich

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References to climate change and the Environmental Protection Agency's use of renewable energy have been removed from several of its web pages, according to an analysis by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative.

The group regularly monitors tens of thousands of federal environmental agency web pages to document what has been changed or scrubbed. It released a report Friday, noting changes to the website in the fall, including links to the EPA's climate change adaptation plan and policy that have been removed.

This is not the first time references to climate change have been cut from its website.

CNN reported previously that the Trump administration has been swapping out the phrase "climate change," while avoiding references to global warming. And in April, environmental groups were dismayed when climate change information was removed from the EPA site with a message that the page was being updated to "reflect the approach of new leadership."

Here are some of the changes reported by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative:

On the above page, several references to climate change have been removed. Previously, it had listed "climate change resilience" as one of the EPA's strategic plans in August. It had also contained two links to EPA's climate change adaptation plan and its policy statement on climate change adaptation, which are no longer there.

On another web page, the reference to how the EPA was the "first major ​federal ​agency ​to ​purchase renewable ​energy ​equal ​to ​100% ​of ​its ​estimated ​annual ​electricity ​use ​nationwide" has been removed.

That same statistic about how the EPA uses renewable energy equal to 100% of its estimated annual electricity use, has been edited out on another web page.